Sanders, even if he acts like a buffon, was effective at getting Mark Warner and Jim Webb elected here in Virginia.

Of course I think the more serious and less buffony Steve Jarding played a bigger role.

how did saunders “help get jim webb elected?”? Webb got elected because allen burst out into his publicizied “macaca” moment and revealed the exact opposite of mudcat’s argument—Allen was a carpetbagging racist who used code words and signals, like the flag, the noose, and dog whistle phrases to convey a very clear racist agenda to some voters, while distancing himself from the old south/outright racism for naieve or inattentive new voters. Webb managed to insert himself between Allen and the new south, not between allen and his staunch racist supporters who will never vote dem because they associate the dems with non whites/gayness/treachery/poor people/rich people and etc…

aimai

Aimai-

Webb ran by being the “good” redneck to Allen’s “bad” (or fake) redneck.

But like I said, Steve Jarding did more and doesn’t get as much credit.

aimai is dead on.  webb didn’t get elected in the sense of undermining Allen by offering an obviously more intelligent and rational choice.  webb on the other blew it by being to much of a cartoon southerner.

As many people have said in many places, consultants are the bane of politics.  mudcat is just another example of this.  For every intelligent consultant that has good advice there are ten that are complete wastes of protoplasm sponging up campaign money.

Oh, and how many adults have printed bedsheets like mucat’s?  You’re kidding me right?  This asshat actually has a confederate flag comforter on his bed?  (Insert white sheets joke here)

Oh, and how many adults have printed bedsheets like mucat’s?  You’re kidding me right?  This asshat actually has a confederate flag comforter on his bed?  (Insert white sheets joke here)

I was chatting with my mom recently about this hunting cabin my stepdad is renting and her needing to go to Target to pick up a few things to make it inhabitable, because she hates outdoorsy roughing it stuff and is going to be spending almost every weekend there this fall.  I joked that she should go to Cabela’s instead and do a kitsch outdoorsy theme—tin cups and plates, shower curtain made out of a tarp, cammo towels, etc. 

She confided that a friend of my stepdad, who has a cabin on the same property, has, in fact, done his up in an Outdoorsman theme, with cammo as far as the eye can see.  And I mean specially made up bedding, curtains, the whole nine yards. 

So, yes, there is a subset of southern men who are secretly still 11 years old and like their printed sheet sets just fine, thankyouvermuch.  This might be why they’re so insecure in their masculinity that they need to hide behind racist domestic terrorism and/or lifestyles built around their guns.

Webb didn’t play the “good redneck” he played the “I’ve been in the military and we are fully integrated and modernized” ex republican/militarist/honor code southernor to allen’s faux southern racist romantic. And he took away moderate votes from allen as well, presumably, as some militarist/southern romanticists. But what saunders had to do with it I don’t know. What “advice” and what strategies did he give webb that any other campaign guy wouldn’t have given? I’m sick and tired of mudcat saunders’ preening and pimping of his southern heritage. The south is going to be pushed out of relevance, electorally speaking, by the mountain west and hopefully the democrats will stop having to swing right to please the rednecks and can swing libertarian to please the western libertarians. That’s what saunders advice always boils down to—not shifting the voters our way but shifting our public stances towards the right/redneck.

aimai

The one time I actually heard Saunders talk (right after Edwards hired him), he referred to rural working-class folk as “real Americans.”

Anyone who uses that term without irony is a dick.

Then again, anyone who uses it WITH irony is a hack, but I’ll take tired humor over whatever the fuck Saunders does any day.

As a North Carolina native, I have to patiently endure regional bigotry from those outside the region who think the South is full of ignorant, toothless, uneducated hillbillies who drive down the highway tossing beer cans out of the window and burn crosses on the weekends for entertainment.

I wouldn’t say “full”, but…

No Disrespect to Pam,( whom I really respect and think is pretty awesome), but the tired complaints from Liberal Southerners about “regional bias” is starting to feel like the tired complaints of liberal Christians. You know what’s going to make people stop resenting the south? When the south stops being America’s number 1 impediment to progress and change.

Aside from producing awesome art, the south has been on the wrong end of every important battle in this country’s history.

Seriously, and I say this as someone who grew up in Jesusland, the reason people dis the south is because we’re tired of having them fuck the country up, and we’re tired of having to kiss their asses every 4 years. I left the region for a reason, and it wasn’t because the majority of people there were awesome, wonderful special people who were decent, intelligent and smart.

Yes, I know YOU (you being the liberal southerner reading this) aren’t part of the problem, but pretending that the one cool enclave of non medieval thinking is somehow representative of the entire region is as ridiculous as Unitarians complaining about how the millions of Christians fundies who outnumber them aren’t “real” Christians. Austin, Atlanta, Chapel Hill, and other rare exceptions to the general poverty, ignorance and all around shittiness of the south are exceptions.

Face it - if you’re “different,” if you’re thoughtful, or intelligent, or generous, or let’s face it, a decent human being, you are going to be eating shit sandwiches from the vast majority of Southerners who are in fact a bunch of willfully ignorant assholes. Bitching about it doesn’t make it untrue.

Instead of complaining about how mean liberals in other states are, you have two options: Change the region so it isn’t a giant fuck you to humanist values, or leave and move somewhere you’ll be treated like a human being even if you commit the unholy crime of being interesting.

Again, I say this as a reader and admirer of Pam.

Acting like there is one “South” anymore to begin with is pretty silly.

Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida (duh) are pretty different from the rest of the states in the region.

Why are you sleeping with the symbol of oppression and bigotry?

Apparently, he doesn’t buy into your characterization of the Stars and Bars, Sweetie.

And to add to my earlier point, if Southerners are the victims of regional bias, then why is it that no one would ever run a campaign in which they routinely used references to the South to imply that someone wasn’t worthy to hold office, but politicians from every region use words like “California/San Fransisco Liberal”, “Massachusetts Liberal”, “New Yorker” etc etc etc to win elections. Why is it that politicians of all regions routinely use imagery of the south (and to a lesser extent, the “heartland” which is essentially the same thing) as shorthand for “real America”?

I guess California, new York< Massachussetts, any place that isn’t run according to the rules of the south don’t count.

The simple fact is that if there’s any regional bias, it’s in favor of the south and against the civilized parts of this country, not the other way around. I for one am far more tired of having to kiss southern ass and seeing where I lived insulted every election.

Again, I’m not counting people in the south who don’t suck. But they are in the minority.

“Why is it that politicians of all regions routinely use imagery of the south (and to a lesser extent, the “heartland” which is essentially the same thing) as shorthand for “real America”?”

The heartland is NOT the South. That’s the Great Plains and Midwest.

Also, Ross, places like the T of Pennsylvania or the U of Ohio are not exactly bastions of enlightened Progressivism. Even in New York, if you took out the New York City metro area the politics there wouldn’t look that different from Virginia or North Carolina.

You’re right. Little rural places in the civilized places are EXACTLY the same as an entire region. Exactly.

Ross you’ve never fucking been here, have you?

The “little rural places” in the north were enough to swing New Hampshire to Bush in 2000, swing Ohio both times, Iowa once, and Indiana both times. Pennsylvania was too close for comfort both times as well.

At this point in the stage, McCain is about the same place in VA and NC in the polls as he is in (Civilized?) MI and OH.

If New Yorkers hadn’t colonized Vermont it’d still be solid red.

Florida is not part of the South!

The only Floridians with Southern accents are from the cracker enclaves where inbreeding still happens and transplants from the South.

I was born in Flordia and people from Alabama, Tenn, Georgia, Miss asked me why I don’t have a Southern accent. I tell them it’s not part of the South.

“but pretending that the one cool enclave of non medieval thinking “

Those are the paved parts of the south. Best way to tell how non medieval the part of the South you are traveling in is how many ethnic restaurants there per population. The higher the number the less medieval it is due to all the people wanting non shitty and non deep fried food.

As for Southern food being inspired by blacks. Who the hell believes that? Only reason why blacks ate that crap is that was fed to them along with the garbage parts of the animals from the slaveowners kitchen. Actual African food is better then that crap.

I think some people are confusing “Appalachia” with “the South”.

Unpaved roads? WTF?

Florida is not part of the South!

The further south in Florida you get, the further North culturally you get—except for Miami, which is its own entity at this point.

The urban/rural disconnect is bigger than the North/South disconnect, really—downstate Illinois, western Kansas, and the U of Ohio are all politically more alike than Minneapolis and the L of Minnesota are. There are plenty of liberal enclaves in the South, and where there’s urbanization and prosperity (think northern Virginia, for example), there’s reasonably progressive politics.

All southerners aren’t flat-headed racists, any more than all northerners are espresso-swilling elitists. The south has more of the flat-headed racist group per capita than the north, and Mudcat doesn’t help convince anyone otherwise—but Mudcat’s an idiot, and he should be simply ignored.

I think some people are confusing “Appalachia” with “the South”.
Unpaved roads? WTF?

Leave us the fuck out of this.

We told you. We told you dumb bastards! <strike>Penny will start a fire</strike> Yankees will kick your asses! But you wouldn’t listen to the ignurnt hill-folk… Noooooo. What the hell do they know? Ooooh our gallantry will carry the day! Pffft! Flatlander morons.

And you! Yankees! Thanks for all the grand rewards for loyalty. What’s that? We’re still poor and ignorant? Well fuck you too!

Ah. That felt constructive.

I just love regional warfare.

Can we attack Texas next?

You know what’s going to make people stop resenting the south? When the south stops being America’s number 1 impediment to progress and change.

Well, in a political sense, sure. 

But the bottom line is that there is a regional bias against the south, in a cultural sense.  I think it mainly has roots in the rural/urban divide, but it manifests in a lot of very unfair biases against southerners as people.  As I said, mainly on cultural points.  I’m a transplant to the north, and I still self-censor a little bit, culturally and linguistically.  Which is dumb.  But you know what?  It hurts when you idly mention a food you grew up eating and someone else in the conversation either laughs or makes a face (or worse, actually makes an unironic crack about “white trash”).  A coworker of mine sent on an email forward recently that was basically one big Oh My God Southerners Are Such Morons, and no, it wasn’t about politics. 

And I won’t even get into the issue of country music, or really anything that is in any way tinged with a country-esque kind of sound.  Which is thankfully receding a little bit what with the Johnny Cash mystique and the resurgence of (a certain kind of) folk and bluegrass.  But let a track from Double Live sneak into an iTunes playlist, and no, actually, your friends won’t pretend to like it or even understand that it’s a nostalgic thing because it was your favorite song in 7th grade.

Bashing southern culture is the last proud and open kind of bigotry left for Northeastern urbanites, and it can be kind of annoying to butt heads with.

Then lets’ put it more bluntly - New York didn’t commit treason so they could keep their slaves. And then spend 100 years exacting tribute from the people they used to enslave after they lost the war they started (and yes people, the South started the civil war, not the north) to keep their slaves in the first place. And red, blue, that’s not the point - the point is that even when New England was republican, they were still a jillion times more liberal than the south during the solid democratic south days. This is just a fact.

And no one has bothered answering my other question - why is it that it’s perfectly okay for politicians of all stripes to routinely slander the north, the west coast, etc? Because it happens all the time. Hell, Hillary Clinton started using “San Fransisco” as an epithet, and that city is filled with some of her own most loyal supporters! During the 2004 presidential debates, the President of the United States insulted the entire state of Massachusetts to score cheap points on Kerry, and no one said a goddamned thing. Imagine the royal shitfit the pundits and politicians would have had if Kerry had said that Bush was just another “Texas Reactionary”. Peopel would be bending over backwards to defend the Fine People of Texas, members of Kerry’s party would scramble to the TV to distance themselves from his “divisive” comments, and pundits would declare that Democrats hate the real America (as they always do.)

But sure, people on the internets expressing disgust with the fact that the South consistently fucks the country up, that’s exactly the same thing as politicians and TV stars using places like California, new England, NY and so on as a synonym for traitor. Exactly.

And show me one politician or pundit who has ever spoken of the south in negative terms.

The fact is, the real regional bias is pro south, anti anyone who doesn’t adopt their values. Just like it’s always been, going back to the 1800s.

The Opoponax, I know exactly what you mean - the first time I asked for Texas toast (one week after moving to LA) and the Waitress laughed, I was a bit annoyed to say the least.

On the other hand, I’ve never been called a faggot by random people on the street for the crime of walking near their car and looking a bit different from them. I’ve never had strangers walk up to me in restaurants lecturing me about how me and people like me are bad for America. Used to happen to me all the time back home.

Funny that.

Sure Ross Detroit, Philly, Boston. They’re all centers of racial harmony and reconciliation.

Or not.

To expound on that point, the racism in the North and the racism in the South is very different from one another.

If people were interested in discussing that instead of scoring regional talking points that would be a step forward.

You folks all—that ALL o’ y’all—need to read Joe Bageant’s utterly spellbinding book, Deer Hunting with Jesus.

You will understand the South and poor white resentment of, well, all o’ y’all. Joe’s voice is reasonable and compassionate, while advocating an approach to wooing the Appalachia Vote that emanates from deep within its own heart, and from, well, a place that we seem to have forgotten—the Old Left. Yeah, Joe’s a Marxist. You’d be amazed how refreshing it is to read a series of essays written by a Marxist from Winchester, Virginia. Like a blast of ammonia, straight into the nostrils.

“Deer Hunting with Jesus is one of those rare books that is colorful, depressing, hilarious, and biting all at the same time. Joe Bageant has given us a glimpse into the vicious class war that is too often ignored or hidden by those happily perpetrating this war.”
—David Sirota, author of Hostile Takeover

There are plenty of liberal enclaves in the South, and where there’s urbanization and prosperity (think northern Virginia, for example), there’s reasonably progressive politics.

I’ve had the impression—and I might be biased or incorrect because I’ve always lived in Atlanta—that when it comes to state matters, the rest of Georgia (read: rural) likes to do what it can to hobble Atlanta and progress overall (I suppose we have too many uppity foreigners and homos living here in the naughty city), seemingly out of spite, but that may be my bias talking. But something sure is making it hard to do this whole thing Ross is encouraging, as much as we may try.

Bashing southern culture is the last proud and open kind of bigotry left for Northeastern urbanites, and it can be kind of annoying to butt heads with.

Ohhh, yes. I used to be in a relationship with a man from Maine, who acted as if it was beneath him to live in Atlanta, even. Let’s not even talk about his horror when we had to drive to *gasp* ALABAMA for a wedding. Ironic when I can clearly recall his (fellow white Mainer) cousin talking about “niggers.”

The first time I ever heard a white person use the word “nigger” was when I visited my grandparents in oh-so-civilized suburban Philadelphia. And I grew up in freaking Dinwiddie County!

I’ve never been called a faggot by random people on the street for the crime of walking near their car and looking a bit different from them.

Look, Ross.  I bounced the hell out of the South less than 2 months after my 18th birthday.  You’re preaching to the choir. 

And, again, what I’m saying here is that there is a cultural bias.  The people I know who are the most obnoxious about their hatred of all things that didn’t originate in the Northeast or certain parts of the West Coast are not particularly political and don’t seem overly concerned about bigotry in other parts of their life.  They just Fucking Hate Country Music, OK?  And they are just Not Eating That Weird Velveeta Thing, OK?

The first time I ever heard the word “nigger” used as an epithet was at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 16th Street in Manhattan. The year: 1984. Not drawin’ any conclusions….

“full of ignorant, toothless, uneducated hillbillies who drive down the highway tossing beer cans out of the window and burn crosses on the weekends for entertainment”

No, take it from a Charlestonian, that’s SOUTH Carolina.

Alas, I’m only half kidding.

As for who’s got the worse attitude—well, you should hear what South Carolinians say about Northeastern cities when they can’t tell you’re a transplant from up there.

People in New York think everyone is a barbarian. it’s not just the south, listen to how they talk about Californians. There’s a joke that goes something like:

A recent transplant from Ohio was at a party in Manhattan. Someone asked him where he was from.

“I’m from Ohio!”

“No darling, here we pronounce it ‘Iowa’.

Point is, it’s not just the south New yorkers condescend to, it’s everyone else.

I can’t speak to your experience, but I think I can say that while old school country rules, Country music today is probably the worst music produced in America that isn’t eligible for the Dove Awards. And FWIW, at least in my scene, Country music is so super much beloved and considered practically sacred that Lynn Anderson might as well be a minor saint. LA Loves country, let me assure you.

I’m not an expert or anything, but it’s my impression that Country music died sometime c. 1990, and was replaced by a pod-person that is corporate white pop sung with a twang by sanctimonious, jingoistic putzes. I’ll tell it to your achey-brakey heart: Anyone with sense is bound to loathe it.

Point is, it’s not just the south New yorkers condescend to, it’s everyone else.

I have been around the North outside of the 5 boroughs, you know.  And, NY being a city of transplants, I’ve met plenty of people from other parts of the north.  Who have the same “hehehe!  Deliverance!  hehehe!” attitude.

This isn’t about the NYC “center of the universe” superiority complex, though there is that.

Wow, Ross - wow. Well, here’s the thing. I will not be driven out of my home. I will stay here and do what I can. I have no intention of running away to some place where it’s easy to be a liberal. I’m going to stick it out, because this is my home.

Wapsie: As you suggest, there’s the high end of the recording industry, and then there’s what gets played in clubs and small dives, and sometime put out on small labels. The country recording industry is just like the rest of the music business. Or put another way, Nashville has its insufferable music snobs, too.

Lived in Iowa for a while. There, they hate you if you’re not white, and even if you’re not white enough (i.e., you’re a swarthy Italianoid like me). They just do it quietly, with that frosty awful Nordic reserve Garrison Keillor has made a mint celebrating.

On a T-shirt sold in Iowa City, c. 1995: University of Iowa, Idaho City, Ohio.

A question asked me in all seriousness by a Connecticut native: Is there *really* an Iowa?

I think I can say that while old school country rules, Country music today is probably the worst music produced in America that isn’t eligible for the Dove Awards. And FWIW, at least in my scene, Country music is so super much beloved and considered practically sacred that Lynn Anderson might as well be a minor saint. LA Loves country, let me assure you.

....aaaaaand I’ve officially expanded my observation of the anti-Southern bias to the LA area.  Because, yup, that’s about the opinion of even the Northerners I know who “respect” (some kinds of) country.  “I like the kinds of country that are nowadays produced mainly by other Northerners, but that’s ALL, really.”  It’s sort of like the line you can draw between people who are happy to state their hatred for any and all types of music dominated by black people, and the ones who “HATE rap, but old school Tribe Called Quest is OK”.

Which isn’t to say everyone has to like all country music or you secretly hate all Southerners.  But it’s a pretty stereotypical opinion which tends to be shorthand for a lot of underlying biases.

I’ll also say that it’s not so much “I don’t happen to prefer X genre of music,” but the fact that a Northerner who hears country that isn’t Faux-Blue Collar Hipster Approved will practically curl up and die.  They want you to change it, immediately.  They will spend more time than the length of the song whining about how much country sucks, and how they can’t believe you grew up listening to that crap and even still OWN it.  Even if they’re generally not music snobs and have no particular criticism of other kinds of pop.

“the west coast of Iowa”

—Joan Didion’s perfect encapsulation of (white) California

You folks all—that ALL o’ y’all—need to read Joe Bageant’s utterly spellbinding book, Deer Hunting with Jesus.

Hell Yeah!  I’m not southern, but I am trailer trash by upbringing.  I couldn’t put that book down.  Nail. Head. Hit.

Bageant has his own website as well: http://bageant.typepad.com/

“Face it - if you’re “different,” if you’re thoughtful, or intelligent, or generous, or let’s face it, a decent human being, you are going to be eating shit sandwiches from the vast majority of <strike>Southerners</strike> Americans who are in fact a bunch of willfully ignorant assholes.”

Spelling error now fixed.

Prodigal nails it.  Face it, there are enclaves of ignorance and racism all over this land.  And to answer the meme that the South is responsibe for every fuck up the USA has ever suffered, think Ohio, 2004.

And to answer the meme that the South is responsibe for every fuck up the USA has ever suffered, think Ohio, 2004.

Or Florida, 2000. (Florida is not a Southern state. It is in the South, but it is not of the South, except for the panhandle.)

Or Connecticut, birthplace of George W. Bush. Or Wyoming, home of Dick Cheney.

Or Iowa and Indiana and Ohio and Missouri, Midwestern states that voted for W. Or Kansas, What’s the Matter With. Or Minnesota, which has inexplicably elected Tim Pawlenty Governor—twice. Or South Dakota, which not only does not defenestrate Leslee Unruh, but continues to try to ban abortion. Or the entire Mountain West, which is live and let live, unless you’re different. Or California, which, let’s not forget, has passed dozens of statewide initiatives that hampered immigrants’ rights and destroyed the state’s budget.

You get the idea—probably every state in the Union has done something disastrous, whether it be due to the great genocidal expansion westward or seceding from the union to support slavery or (in the case of New York) standing proudly with the Tories during the Revolutionary War. Or all of the above.

And while I may not like contemporary country* or collard greens**, the fact is that up here in liberal, tolerant Meenasohtah, my daughter goes to school half a mile from a suburban megachurch; my state’s governor attends a different suburban megachurch. I’ve covered a fundraiser for a barnstorming religious group whose aim is to get public money to preach the gospel in schools—headlined by the former Minnesota Secretary of State and former Judge Roy Moore—held in a nice hotel in downtown Minneapolis. I’ve covered the National Abstinence Convention, held in a nice hotel in downtown St. Paul.

The crazies are everywhere. The South may have more of them per capita, but it’s a question of degree, not major difference. That doesn’t mean it’s not cathartic to hate on the South occasionally—and I categorically reject the idea that Massachusetts is less American than Mississippi. But such hate should be the same as Minnesotans have toward Wisconsin—a rivalry, sure, but a friendly one, one grounded in the awareness that we are more alike than different.

Forgot my footnotes:

*I recognize that my disdain for modern country, like my disdain for reggae, is wholly cultural—and exacerbated by the fact that Memphis is no smarter about recording artists than Los Angeles is. Both modern pop and modern country are disposable. But traditional country—which never went away—is excellent, as is any musical form done well.

**My sister played soccer for the University of Kansas; as a Big 12 team, they spent a lot of time in southern states. Once, at a Waffle House, she asked the waitress what greens were like. The waitress replied that if my sister was asking, she wouldn’t like them. That’s been my experience with greens; I imagine a Southerner feels much the same about hot dish*** made with a base of cream of mushroom soup.

***Minnesotan for casserole.

Cream of Mushroom soup, rice and duck makes for a hell of a great dinner. This Southerner’s just sayin’.

OK, wait, what?

When you don’t like greens, you mean, like, you don’t like some greens?  You don’t like overcooked greens?  You don’t like a little ham chopped up in your greens? 

What is this “I don’t like greens” you speak of? 

I kid, but seriously I had a 10 minute conversation with my dad today about the possibilities of making pesto* out of carrot tops.  And, for all you city folk, that’s the part that points up.  Out of the ground.  You’ve probably never seen one, because your carrots come trimmed down to shiny nubs.

*though I guess pesto isn’t “greens”, in the sense of “throw lovely fresh leafy thing in a pot and cook the everloving frack out of it”.  But still.  Carrot Top Pesto.  How’s that for some greens?

The Opoponax,

Have you seen CSA: The Confederate States of America…Kevin Wilmott’s vision of how US history would have developed had the South actually won the war?

Seeing it, there were plenty of jokes about Southern culture…..including an interview with one refugee from Confederate colonialism who said that the enforced Confederate cultural hegemony included him being forced to eat “picked pig’s feet” among other things…..and then saying that he almost died from the agony/humiliation….

Ben D, it wasn’t the rural areas in New England that went for Bush. I did the 2004 maps on my own state of NH, painstakingly graphing the townships by votes and by median income with census data. The darkest magenta areas were the richest towns, the ones with the highest number of degrees, all those doctors and lawyers and corporate executives who commute to Boston to avoid paying taxes. Oh, and the ones full of rich retirees playing at being country gentlemen. The actual rural areas with the working farms? Solid blue, and dirt poor, with plenty of dirt roads to match.

NYC, Boston, LA area graphs show the same thing. People do tend to vote their economic self-interest, and the rich know very well who’s going to enable them in the I got mine, screw you department. (The ironic thing about the wealthy and highly-educated townships that went for Bush? Most of them voted strongly against reelecting the Republican governor despite his low tax pledge, because he had fucked up the state government on so many levels so badly in just two years that the statehouse Republicans had formed a group to throw him out. They knew he was going to be bad for them, they just didn’t give a shit about the rest of the country.)

And Ross is a bigoted fool and a parochial, untravelled ignoramus. But that’s a nonpartisan trait…

Exholt, I’ve seen that movie and its hilarious on a lot of levels.

Bellatrys-

Thanks for the info on your home state. I’ve never been to New England (unless you count the Connecticut sububrs of New York) so I don’t know much about the political dynamic there. Here its the opposite in Virginia—you see a line of blue that follows Interstates 95, 64, and circles around the Capital Beltway (i.e., where people live). Everything else is red outside the low country of Southside which is blue thanks to a huge African American population.

Exholt, I draw the line at pickled pigs’ feet.  No frickin’ way.  I don’t unequivocally love EVERY aspect of southern culture, it’s more that I get the sense that if I were from any other part of the world, the folks who blatantly insult the things I grew up with would at least feel the need to be polite and PC about it. 

I mean, I’ve also seen yankees get squicked out about gefilte fish—they’re just not likely to make a face and blatantly REFUSE to eat it when it shows up at a party.  If a (goyisch) Yankee is at a Seder, they will smile and refuse politely, being careful not to insult the host.  Or they might perhaps try a little bit to see if it deserves its reputation, in which case they will only do so if they think they can get it down without gagging, and they will rain copious praise down on their host (even if they didn’t honestly like it that much). 

If a Yankee is at the home of a southern transplant, however, and is served something as Totally Declasse as cream cheese with pepper jelly, they will have the facial expression of a three year old who spies a green thing on his plate and probably say something like, “ummm, do you have anything else to eat that isn’t, like, weird Deliverance country food?”

This could totally be an entry of “Stuff White People Like”.  Except I guess it’d have to be “Stuff Yankees Hate”.

Getting around Ross’s rather hostile language, I think he makes good points.  The issues isn’t who is using ‘nigger’ more often or who has a more culturally biased attitude, it is about the politics and ultimately the policies of it.

The voting patterns of the South have pretty universally fallen on the side of parochialism, racism, and white elitism.  New Englanders may say ‘nigger’, but they haven’t been voting to keep blacks impoverished and uneducated.  If New Englanders were casting their noses down on Southerners and at the same time voting to keep all their money and resources in the own pockets then you might make a link between cultural bias and screwing your neighbors. 

Our political culture realizes the thin skin of Southern and conservative culture.  If you want their vote you have to cater to their need to have our laws meet their cultural biases first and foremost.  The South dropped the populist economic policies of the Democrats in the blink of an eye when those policies came attached with trying to treat blacks like Americans.  I think the rest of rural America has now bought into the Southern version of conservatism. Perhaps due to the ease of communication even in rural areas there has been a real convergence of conservative thinking and that it has a Southern tinge shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.

What happened to my post?? I was *late to work* cause I was busy composing & now it’s *gone.* <snivel>

If a Yankee is at the home of a southern transplant, however, and is served something as Totally Declasse as cream cheese with pepper jelly, they will have the facial expression of a three year old who spies a green thing on his plate and probably say something like, “ummm, do you have anything else to eat that isn’t, like, weird Deliverance country food?”

There are a large number of my undergrad classmates who looked askance at me because I didn’t care enough to conceal my love for chicken-fried steak and grits among other things…..and I was a born and bred New Yorker. 

Then again, a large part of this was due to the horrid state of town-gown relations while I was there.

The vast majority of my classmates tended to look dismissively upon the “townies” as little better than reactionary right-wing “White trash” with racist, homo/transphobic, sexist, and sometimes unrestrained violent tendencies…..and the town residents tended to regard us college students as stuck up radical left-wing pinko commie sexually deviant freaks from the “Left coasts” and Chicago….with special venom reserved for those from “extremely liberal” cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, and NYC. 

What’s more sad is that these stereotypes, as cartoonish as they may seem…have much basis in truth IME.

Ricky-

What about the busing stuff that happened in Boston? That was at least as nasty as the stuff that transpired in the South during integration.

A Southern state (Virginia) was the first state in the Union to elect a black Governor, its worth pointing out as well.

What about the busing stuff that happened in Boston? That was at least as nasty as the stuff that transpired in the South during integration.

What’s more is that the anger from the busing in Boston neighborhoods like Southie are still raging…especially when the common perception among most of the working-class Irish in that area is that the more socio-economically privileged White…mostly non-Irish progressives forced integration on them while moving themselves and their families out into upper-class all-White Boston suburbs.  In addition to the rancid racism against non-Whites….there is also anger at what they saw as blatant hypocrisy of those White progressives who were no different from the socio-economically privileged conservative and conservative-leaning centrists in participating in the “White flight” from once working/middle-class Boston neighborhoods. 

Moreover…with the wealthier members of Boston’s tax base moving to the suburbs during the late 1960’s and 70’s…..the lack of funding was one of the contributory factors in the neglect and decline of most Boston public schools. 

Those tensions was one reason why there is still a great deal of racial segregation in Boston and worse….racist animosities in certain areas…..a factor why I was warned by many POC co-workers to be on guard when I was going thorough areas like Southie….which was confirmed when I was doing the 2000 census in that area and was subjected to racist epithets from some of the working-class White Irish teens and young adults of the area.

I moved from the Northeast to the South in gradeschool and experienced both sides of the divide—my peers behaving as though I’d landed from Mars, my parents making sure I understood that eating catfish was unmitigated barbarism. (Turns out it’s God damned good.)

No South, no blues, no jazz, no rock’n'roll. Full stop. And since when were the most stereotypical residents of New Jersey a charming or enlightened lot?

Exholt, I draw the line at pickled pigs’ feet.  No frickin’ way.

I’ve never had pickled pigs feet….but I’ve had cooked chicken’s feet for dim sum and despite the squeamishness of many non-Chinese or even some Americanized Chinese-Americans whenever I order it…..it is sooooo delicious.

What’s more funny is that my father detests chicken’s feet so I must have inherited my love for it from my mother…who is also fond of it.

but I’ve had cooked chicken’s feet for dim sum and despite the squeamishness of many non-Chinese or even some Americanized Chinese-Americans whenever I order it…..it is sooooo delicious.

Chicken feet are one of those things that I would probably try in a social situation, to be polite, and if it was really good, then awesome!! BUT probably wouldn’t not venture to make on my own or order in a restaurant because it honestly sounded appetizing. 

Which sort of underscores the difference between “No thanks, I think I took too much of everything else already; my eyes are always bigger than my stomach…” and “EEEEEW, grits?!  Ick!  No way!  That’s nasty!”  Grownups do not act that way about unfamiliar “ethnic” food.  It bugs me to no end that this is suspended for anything stereotypically southern.

The best part is that people who know I’m from the south would probably call me racist if I acted blatantly disgusted by something in a dim sum joint.

I have no idea where Opoponax lives that southern food hasn’t caught hold yet. But here in Chicago if you know a place that serves barbecue, catfish, greens, and pickled pigs feet, you best treasure that knowledge like purest gold. I actually proposed “Southern Food” to Stuff White People Like, based on my experiences in Chicago and New York.

Ben,

It is always possible to find examples, racism is pretty universal and it took our country almost 100 years to get rid of legalized slavery and another 100 years to end its virtual approximation in Jim Crow laws and none of it would have been in place in the South without the complicity of the rest of the nation.

I have lived most of my life in Texas, spent some years in NYC, and now live in rural New England.  The main differences I see amongst people up here versus down there is that the majority of people here seem to understand government and taxation and seem willing to see our government help people and if it happens to help those they don’t like, well so be it.  For most up here the common good seems to be understood as a universal while down South it seems to have all sorts of identifiers attached at various levels.  Military is a universal but everything else should be controlled by the state or by locals or by the church with no one from the outside having a role in what is done.

Liberal and progressive ideas and policies for at least the past half century have mostly come out of the North and the West Coast.  This merely means that there is a majority of people in these parts of the country who see things the way most of us on the Left see things and are willing to see them put into practice.  There is little positive legislatively that has come out of the South in generations.

I see The Opoponax is managing to single handedly prove Pam wrong.

Or more accurately she’s falling in line with Mudcat.

Personally I just don’t understand how these vote against your own best interest because they’re “Furin” or “Yankee” ideas.
Personally as a military brat who’s settled on the west coast, once the word “Yankee” leaves your mouth you’re part of the problem, not the solution.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to teach my little “Memphis-Belle” some more of those “San Fransisco values” she’s been enjoying so much.

Well, what? - I live in New York.  Barbecue has caught on, but they never serve anything particularly far out like pig’s feet, and the menu is kept to classic barbecue stuff.  Greens are the only vaguely “southern” side dishes—it’s usually rounded out with things yankees are familiar with like mashed potatoes, cole slaw, potato salad, and macaroni and cheese. 

Foods like grits, hush puppies, catfish, or country fried steak are generally not available even in barbecue joints, and you can forget anything that’s considered home cooking and not restaurant fare.

The only exception to this is Sylvia’s, in Harlem, which most white people patronize as a touristy “event”, not as a place to go grab a casual bite.  And when they go, they will point and laugh at anything even vaguely weird on the menu. 

And cynickal, kindly fuck off.

Srsly? Only Sylvia’s is left? There is no more Ray’s? That would be a sad thing. (It has been some years since NY for me). Well, shoot. All I can say is that even the Whitiest McWhitenburg ‘round Chicago (Evanston) has two beyond-excellent southern joints and the menus run the gamut. (Actually I don’t think Hecky’s has pigs’ feet, but they have every other part of the pig.) One is more Cajun-influenced, the other is full on hush-puppies-and-catfish-and-PORK. You might be right about grits, but they serve them in Wisconsin to seemingly little protest.

I just doubt you’d get anything but enthused/intrigued reactions from people around here, at the bare mention of Teh Southern. And Velveeta? Fuck, man, this is the Midwest. Some of us have entire sections of DNA made from Velveeta.

“Cajun-influenced”

Remember Cajun is French influenced using certain ingrediants that would be unappealing to most Southerners if they weren’t told it was Cajun. Also quite frankly a lot of Southerners I have met cannot withstand anything hot. Most Cajun places in the south serve bland unspiced food that is an insult to Cajun cooking.

Foods like grits, hush puppies, catfish, or country fried steak are generally not available even in barbecue joints, and you can forget anything that’s considered home cooking and not restaurant fare.

Had grits and country/chicken fried steak thanks to a Country-style diner near my college.  Never had hush puppies or catfish unfortunately….though I wouldn’t mind giving them a try sometime…:)

Damn…you’re making me really hungry…;)

New Englanders may say ‘nigger’, but they haven’t been voting to keep blacks impoverished and uneducated.

Well, don’t take this as an apologia for Southern redneckery—it’s not—but hello, New England doesn’t really have any black people to oppress. In areas where a few blacks do exist, the honkies jab’em with a flagpole.

Still being dense Godmonkey?

Most of rural Texas has no blacks either, but they are quick to vote against anything that might favor blacks, or in most cases latinos, even if it will also help them (and they don’t generally aren’t too shy about saying it)...up here not so much.  People will express their racism but they are mostly the minority that vote Republican. 

It ain’t perfect, but I wouldn’t trade Northern politics for Southern politics. The majority of Southerners (at least the majority of those that vote) seem obsessed with voting in legislators whose purpose is in part to make life as miserable as possible for the ‘Other’.

Since Pam wrote this post as a native Southerner, it’s hard to believe how many of you are using “Southerner” as shorthand for “white Southerner”.  Your stereotypes are so broad, yet you don’t seem to know the first thing about the demographics of the South.